2019 TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC coverage sponsored by Envestnet | Tamarac Sign up for a demo at http://www.fppad.com/tamarac
I connected with technology executives from TD Ameritrade Institutional at the 2019 National LINC conference to get all the updates on how TD Ameritrade Institutional is pushing the envelope on Veo One, technology innovation, and enhancing the client experience.
Innovation and AdvisorClient Updates
First up is Jon Patullo, Managing Director, Technology Product Management for TD Ameritrade Institutional to discuss Innovation Alley, new TD Ameritrade Institutional skills for Alexa, and updates to the AdvisorClient user experience.
Growth of Veo Open Access
Then I met with Marcel Tsai, Senior Product Manager, Technology Solutions for TD Ameritrade Institutional to discuss the latest statistics of the Veo Open Access solution provider network and identify the vendors that are integrated with Veo One.
Veo One® Enhancements and Innovation Quest
Finally I met with Chris Valleley, Director of Technology Solutions for TD Ameritrade Institutional to discuss the functionality present in Veo One for financial advisers and highlight the new Innovation Quest competition being introduced at the 2019 National LINC conference.
Disclosure: Wealthbox and its owner Starburst Labs have purchased marketing services from Bill Winterberg in the last 12 months. See all disclosures here: fppad.com/disclaimer
Welcome to a new FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.
Robinhood Outage Impacts Options Trading
It was a tough week for Robinhood, the zero-commission stock and cryptocurrency trading app, as the company first suffered a significant outage related to stock option trading on Wednesday December 12th.
According to a Business Insider article, a Robinhood spokesperson said the outage impacted “a smaller percentage of customers” and trading was limited, “as a precautionary measure.”
Nevertheless, a number of Robinhood users voiced their frustration on Twitter, posting a series of tweets showing rejected option trades in their accounts and complaining of losses they felt they realized due to the outage in trading.
Robinhood Rescinds “Checking and Savings” Feature
Then on Thursday, Robinhood announced a new brokerage feature it called “Checking and Savings,” that promised a 3% interest rate on cash, support for bill pay and direct deposit, all of which Robinhood claimed was insured under SIPC protection.
But in response to swift industry backlash, Robinhood removed all of its marketing material for “Checking and Savings” just 36 hours later and replaced it with a reference to potential “cash management” features to be released at a later time. The most concerning feedback surrounding the feature launch came from SIPC president and CEO Stephen Harbeck, who went on the record to say that he doubted cash deposited for the Checking and Savings feature would be covered and insured under the non-government member agency’s rules and requirements.
TD Ameritrade Institutional and Wealthbox CRM Automate Account Openings
And switching gears to fintech news for financial advisers, Wealthbox, the provider of CRM solutions for advisers, announced a new automated account opening feature integrated with TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Veo platform.
The integration allows advisers using Wealthbox CRM to pre-fill client information into Veo and Veo One account-opening forms directly from the contact record page in Wealthbox.
Here’s Wealthbox CEO John Rourke with more:
Wealthbox continues to fathom the depths of Veo One integration resulting in fewer steps.
For advisers to help investors the Wealthbox app is a breeze.
From millennials to empty nesters, opening new accounts is now done with ease.
For more information on this news and more, head over to FPPad.com/flashbriefing to find the links to today’s top stories.
I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com. Check back in with me later for more fintech news.
We met with TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Jon Patullo and Chris Valleley to update financial advisers on what’s new with Veo One® and the addition of FA Insights benchmarking information to support adviser growth.
Our coverage of the 2018 National LINC sponsored by Envestnet | Tamarac. Visit http://fppad.com/tamarac to sign up for a demo today.
Today’s episode is brought to you by Orion Advisor Services, the industry’s premier portfolio accounting service provider for advisors. Orion integrates with several automated investment platforms, but you’re not sure if now the right time to add a robo element to your firm.
Find out if you’re ready, or not, to add your own solution by downloading a free copy of the Orion pre-robo checklist today by visiting fppad.com/robochecklist.
[This week’s top story is all about Betterment, because in the wake of last week’s Brexit vote, the company notified financial advisors on the Betterment Institutional platform that it had suspended trading from 10am to 12pm Eastern on June 24th, citing their expectation of “highly unpredictable volatility,” a decision which has triggered all sorts of discussions across the investment community.
First, a primer. Betterment uses ETFs for all customer portfolios, and when trading gets volatile, ETF pricing can get significantly disconnected from the value of the ETF’s underlying securities. Remember the flash crash of August 2015? ETF pricing was all over the map, especially for lightly traded and illiquid ETFs.
So, when Betterment’s team identified undesirable trading conditions, they suspend all trading. And as a discretionary advisor to retail customers, they can totally do that. It’s disclosed right there on page 65 of the retail agreement, which every customer acknowledges they read by checking the I agree box next to the Sign Up button. <wink wink>
But the exact same language is on page 70 of the Institutional Agreement, and I couldn’t find anything that said trading *authorized by the Advisor* would be treated any differently. In the RIABiz coverage of the event, Michael Kitces said that treating financial advisors the same as clients “creates operational channel conflicts.”
And there’s the rub. If you’re an advisor using Betterment Institutional for your clients, when you authorize trades, you need to know whether those trades will be subject to Betterment’s suspension criteria.
But that’s one risk of using ETFs in Betterment Institutional, or any automated investment service for that matter. Sometimes the pricing gets out of whack, and you won’t always know in advance when that happens.
So on a volatile day, you need to understand that, as of today, your trade authorizations might not be processed right away, and your trades will be in limbo for who knows how long until Betterment decides it’s ok to resume trading. I suspect that policy might soon be changing for Betterment Institutional users.] Betterment, LLC, a pioneer in the world of automated investing, made an unusual move and suspended all trading Friday morning as markets were roiled by the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union.
[My next story highlights TD Ameritrade Institutional, as I attended the custodian’s 7th annual technology summit in Dallas, and I made a vlog about it so you can get a glimpse of what the event is like, so be sure to check it out.
At the summit, executives offered updates on Veo Open Access, which now features 104 integrated solution providers, announced the introduction of Veo Advanced Alerts, and reiterated the pending release of the Veo One platform for late fall of this year.
There weren’t very many advisor dashboards available when Veo One was first announced in January of last year, but recently several tech providers have invested heavily in their own all-in-one dashboards, with notable names like Envestnet|Tamarac, supported by Envestnet’s acquisitions of Finance Logix and Yodlee, Salesforce, with its rollout of Financial Services Cloud happening now, and Fidelity’s Wealthscape platform anticipated by the end of this year, which will include technology from the eMoney acquisition.
So Veo One will go up against some stiff competition when it is rolled out later this year, so I recommend you make plans now to refresh what you know about the dashboard options for your business in the second half of this year.] A growing community of technology innovators, which has collaborated with TD Ameritrade Institutional1 to make Veo Open Access one of the industry’s leading platforms for independent registered investment advisors (“RIAs”), is again coming together to drive significant new enhancements to Veo and accelerate the pace of future Veo One integrations.
Here are the stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:
Junxure, the industry leading CRM solutions and technology company for financial advisors, this week announced new enhancements to its cloud-based CRM platform, Junxure Cloud®. As part of its ongoing work to integrate with leading platforms serving independent registered investment advisors (RIAs), Junxure Cloud has expanded its integration with Veo®, TD Ameritrade Institutional’s comprehensive trading and account management platform.
Vestorly Inc., the leading content marketing and relationship analytics platform in the financial services industry, today announced a unique partnership with Dow Jones that will enable all Vestorly users to access Dow Jones content, including The Wall Street Journal, in order to engage clients and generate leads.
Today, the company behind one of the more popular solutions for helping consumers manage their online accounts, Dashlane, is making its move into the enterprise.
Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company, today launched a suite of technology enhancements that provide wealth management firms with greater flexibility to digitally transform their business.
On today’s broadcast, Riskalyze announces its new Check-Ins feature, eMoney Advisor shows off its new client experience, Fidelity offers a preview of its new Wealthscape™ platform, and TD Ameritrade Institutional tells me when you can expect Veo One.
Today’s episode is brought to you by eMoney Advisor, providers of a leading ADVISOR-CENTRIC wealth-planning portal.
eMoney just introduced an enhanced client experience, incorporating many of the features investors find most compelling about digital advice platforms – like automation, intuitive design, ease-of-use, and more, helping you deliver an unmatched client experience. For more information on eMoney’s brand new client portal, visit fppad.com/emoneyadvisor
[Last week I attended the T3 conference in Ft. Lauderdale, and I made three vlogs that you should watch, so let me give you the rundown of what I think were the best stories from the event.
Leading off is Riskalyze, as CEO Aaron Klein introduced a feature called Check-ins, which allows you to gauge your client’s sentiment of the markets with a pretty unobtrusive email. Clients answer two simple questions in a few seconds which helps you quickly identify those who have growing concerns about their financial future. Here’s Aaron Klein on availability and pricing:
Klein: Check-Ins are going to arrive in May, and we haven’t set pricing for them yet, but I can tell you it’s going to be a free upgrade for all of our existing customers.] Riskalyze, the company that has equipped thousands of advisors with the Risk Number™, today announced powerful new tools that revolutionize the ability of advisors to put the markets in context for their clients during client reviews, support client psychology between those reviews, and deliver consistent behavioral coaching that promotes long-term investing.
[Another top update comes from eMoney, as Drew DiMarino took the stage to show off the updated client experience, giving a preview of the new look, showing how goals are tracked in the platform, and highlighted client collaboration features that help clients remember what tasks they should complete to meet their goals. The update is coming in March, and here’s Drew DiMarino on what you can expect:
DiMarino: The new client experience is much more personal in nature, the client can actually add images of their family, set goals with those images tied to those goals, a much more customizable experience for the end client.] At the T3 Advisor conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida today, eMoney Advisor (“eMoney”), a leading provider of wealth-planning technology for financial professionals, will unveil its enhanced client experience.
[And finishing my rundown is Fidelity, as the custodian revealed plans to offer Wealthscape™, Fidelity’s Total Advisor Platform that combines portfolio management, rebalancing, proposals, and fee billing with the features and functionality of the eMoney wealth portal. I caught up with Tom McCarthy, senior vice president for product development at Fidelity for a few more details.
McCarthy: So we’ve taken a hard look at the marketplace, talking to our clients, and looking at a lot of research, so Fidelity’s response to help them grow their business is the Fidelity Total Advisor Platform. The primary pieces of that are a deep integration with our new acquisition of eMoney, bringing planning to action, as well as a full suite of integrated portfolio tools wrapped in very advanced workflows.
The platform is expected to roll out at the end of 2016 with Fidelity-only data, and support for multi-custodial data is anticipated sometime in 2017.] In the escalating battle for control of the technology hub used by registered investment advisors, Fidelity Investments has a new weapon that may turn the tides.
[Now the week before T3 I went to the TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC conference, and I made more videos you should watch, but the biggest takeaway for me was clarification on when to expect the rollout of the Veo One dashboard.
I sat down with Chris Valleley to better understand the timeline when Veo One will be released.
[Winterberg]: So I need to be more clear that it’s not one release date, it’s all official, and it’s all done, but it’s rather graduated and it’s going to be progressive. [Valleley]: That’s right, it won’t be a big bang rollout, it will be an iterative approach, and we’ll find the advisors with the right integrations at the right time and then onboard them into Veo One.
So, fair enough, you’re going to have to be patient for the release of Veo One, just like you’re going to need to wait and see how Fidelity’s Wealthscape evolves, too.
Fortunately, Veo Open Access now supports over 100 integrated solution providers, which means that you have options you can buy and implement today without waiting to see what the custodians promise to offer in the future.] Veo One, TD Ameritrade Institutional’s next-generation advisor technology platform, will give advisors access to all of the CRM, financial planning, portfolio management and other systems they use from one desktop.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have quite a bit of laundry to do from our trips, so for FPPad.com, I’m Bill Winterberg, see you next time!
Here are the video playlists we published from TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC and T3:
2016 TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC
2016 T3 Advisor
Here are stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:
United Capital, the Newport Beach, Calif.-based firm, is acquiring FlexScore, a consumer-facing financial planning tool that aggregates users financial data to generate a credit-score-like number of a person’s financial health.
Several integrated solution providers in the Veo® Village share the technology themes that emerged during their conversations with advisors at the 2016 TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC Conference.
Our coverage from TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC is brought to you by Wealthbox CRM. Sign up for a free trial today at wealthbox.com
I met once again with Technology Solutions executives Chris Valleley and Jon Patullo to set expectations on when advisors can expect the official rollout of Veo One (hint: it will be an iterative rollout planned for the fall of 2016).
Our coverage from TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC is brought to you by Wealthbox CRM. Sign up for a free trial today at wealthbox.com
I just returned from TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC 2015 Conference in San Diego where I produced a couple of videos covering the technology updates from the event.
Veo® Vendor Village
First, you can get a glimpse of the “vendor village” TD Ameritrade Institutional configures for the technology providers that are integrated with the open access capabilities of the Veo® platform.
Nearly 40 of the 85+ integrated providers were on site providing demos of their technology to the thousands of advisors in attendance.
With over 85 integrated vendors, you may see several new companies that you haven’t heard of before, including Advizr, Vanare, and Upside.
Veo One™
Next up is a preview of Veo One™, TD Ameritrade Institutional’s updated online dashboard designed to be a single source for an advisor’s daily workflow.
Veo One is currently in a private testing period with select advisers, and the official rollout is anticipated in late summer or early fall of 2015.
The first five Veo One integrations will include DocuSign® and Laser App Anywhere for account opening, financial planning software from MoneyGuidePro™, Orion Advisor Services for portfolio management, and Redtail Technologies for CRM.
